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The Future Looks Bright
2009 Winners of EPA's P3 Award Design Competition for Sustainability Announced
The three "P's" in P3 are People, Prosperity and the Planet. The competition focuses on benefiting people, promoting prosperity, and protecting the planet through innovative designs to address challenges to sustainability in the developed and developing world.
Established in 2004, the P3 Award Competition is a national student design contest administered by EPA's National Center for Environmental Research. The goal is to foster sustainability education in the nation's colleges and universities while tapping the creative energy of undergraduate and graduate student design and research teams.
The competition has two phases. In phase I, student teams and their faculty advisors submit research proposals for a chance to earn up to $10,000 in seed money to research and develop their design projects during the academic year.
Once the designs are developed, P3 grantees are invited to the National Mall in Washington, DC, each spring to present their projects at the National Sustainable Design Expo. Each design is reviewed by a panel of judges convened by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an organization dedicated to advancing science around the world. The panel's evaluations are passed on to EPA officials, who then choose six teams to receive the prestigious EPA P3 Award. The honor includes the opportunity to receive up to $75,000 in additional grant money, allowing the students to continue to work on their ideas, advancing them from prototypes to the marketplace.
"Scientific innovation has long been a driving force behind the U.S. economy," said Lek Kadeli, acting assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Research and Development. "The ingenuity displayed by this year's People, Prosperity and the Planet award winners shows that we can look forward to a bright future where economic growth and environmental sustainability go hand in hand."
And the winners of the 2009 EPA P3 Awards are:
University of Arizona
Sustainable Integrated Aquaculture Systems with Assessment of Environmental, Social, and Economic ImplicationsDesigning and testing a recirculating aquaculture production system. The team is assessing fish and plant growth rates, water nutrient chemistry, soil quality, and resource economics to determine the conditions that promote economically viable and environmentally sound food production. Read more.
Columbia University
Multifunction Energy Platform (MFP) PilotInstalling and monitoring a multifunction platform (MFP) in a farming cooperative network in Soroti, Uganda. Read more.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
A Novel Solar Thermal Combined Cycle with Bio-Methane Carbon Capture for Distributed Power GenerationDeveloping and demonstrating a modular renewable energy cogeneration system that can use solar and organic resources. Read more.
Drexel University
Syntactic Selective Near Infrared Scattering Architectural CoatingsStudying architectural coatings capable of scattering and reflecting UV, Visible, and near-infrared radiation from the sun to reduce solar gain on the exterior of a building. Read more.
University of Tennessee – Knoxville
The New Norris House: A Sustainable Home for the 21st CenturyDesigning a sustainable home based on the original Norris House concept, homes originally built by TVA in 1933 as part of a New Deal model community. Read more.
University of South Florida
Water Awareness, Research and Education in East Tampa (WARE East Tampa): A pilot collaboration involving USF, Young Magnet Middle School and the East Tampa CommunityStudying community education and awareness as a way of reducing local pollutant inputs to stormwater retention ponds. Read more.
For more information on the P3 Award competition: http://www.epa.gov/P3
To see all the P3 winners and honorable mentions: http://www.epa.gov/ncer/p3/project_websites/2009/2009awardwinners.html